wfn.org | Hurricanes' Aftermath May Mean a Dire Winter for Farmworkers

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31-October-1996 
 
 
96440      Hurricanes' Aftermath May Mean a Dire Winter 
                for Farmworkers in North Carolina 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--When tobacco auction houses closed down a week early in 
eastern North Carolina, it was no surprise to tobacco growers and 
farmworkers, who had watched much of the state's cash crop shrivel up in 
the fields during the past hurricane-ridden summer and fall. 
 
     What no one seems to know for sure is how hard those lost dollars will 
make this winter and the coming spring.  But what farmers do know is that 
living with uncertainty is hard. 
 
     "This disaster was terrible for farmers," said 44-year-old Keith 
Parrish of Benson, N.C., a Presbyterian and former president of the North 
Carolina Tobacco Growers' Association,  who is waiting to see if his crop 
insurance will come close to covering damages for the third of his tobacco 
crop that drowned in hurricane rains that swept inland with Bertha and then 
Fran.  "Others lost one-third or more of the crop. ... 
 
     "It depends how far along [farmers] were on the harvest," said 
Parrish, who added that while some were 50-70 percent complete, others lost 
10-40 percent of their tobacco crop and are waiting to see how the sweet 
potato and cotton crops will do and to see how the insurance adjustors will 
appraise their losses. 
 
     Those who carried policies for wind damage, Parrish said, are coming 
out ahead of those who did not.   Tobacco farmers, with guaranteed 
government production quotas, are able to insure that crop more thoroughly 
than others.  
 
     Such extended losses impact the wider community in several ways, but 
very directly in determining how much farmworkers will earn -- workers who 
average about $7,500 yearly, according to the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry 
(EFM) in Newton Grove, N.C., by either living year-round in one place and 
hiring on for seasonal work or by migrating across the country as the crops 
ripen. 
 
     "There's a lot of anxiety on all sides here," said Betty Bailey, who 
directs the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) in Pittsboro, 
N.C.  "A lot of people who lost their crop won't collect the value of it, 
though they'll collect something. ... There's a maze of paperwork.  It's a 
time of anxiety. ...  
 
     "But they're in a better spot than farmworkers, who collect nothing if 
there's nothing to harvest," said Bailey.  "And they're often not eligible 
for unemployment benefits." 
 
     Any threat to the tenuous economic life of workers has sweeping 
implications, according to EFM's Holly Christofferson, who argues that only 
about 1 percent of that population fits the stereotype of an illegal 
immigrant.  "Any kind of crisis throws people back in dire straits.  It's 
very hard to get out of this line of work and better yourself or your 
family. ... 
 
     "There's no money to buy a car, so you can't go to college.  You come 
home exhausted, and though you want to learn English, you can't get there, 
plus you have low energy," she said, adding that farmworkers' children get 
moved around so much that the average family education level stays at about 
the eighth grade. 
 
     She said work loss caused by disasters like Fran only aggravates an 
already tough situation, often causing evictions for seasonal workers who 
rent property and pushing migrants to hurriedly uproot their families from 
rent-free work camps to head for the next crop, which right now is oranges 
in Florida. 
 
     The Rev. Warren Bock, pastor of the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church in 
Benson, N.C., said that those who are looking at long-term recovery 
problems in North Carolina are figuring on three to five years of work -- 
with available resources to do it still unclear, since coming changes in 
social services, such as less availablity of food stamps, are not yet in 
place though the Welfare Reform Act passed Congress this summer. 
 
     "Food banks," he said, speaking of families who needed emergency help 
in the weeks after Fran, "have been really hard hit.  With the government 
restricting food stamp programs ... there'll be less food stamps.  Add that 
together with the loss of income. ... 
 
     "Things here are beginning to look normal, but it's not normal," he 
said. 
 
     Parrish contends it will take several months for farmers to have a 
clear idea how normal next year will be -- until they are sure how 
insurance companies will pay, until they are certain what banks will allow 
them to borrow against their assets for seasonal operating expenses like 
seed, labor, fertilizer and land rental.  "It will be the first of the year 
before we know exactly what the outcome will be. ... 
 
     "It's too early to tell," said Parrish, when asked whether some 
farmers will be unable to stay on their land.  "The stress is in people who 
were teetering anyway. ... They may go," he said, pointing out that crop 
damage is so widespread it is taking insurance adjustors longer than usual 
to appraise and settle.  "We'll know by the first of the year." 
 
     Stan Hankins of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance told the Presbyterian 
News Service that $25,000 in One Great Hour of Sharing monies has been sent 
to both New Hope and Coastal Carolina presbyteries for emergency relief. 
An additional account to aid Hurricane Fran relief has been set up by the 
denomination: #2000128.  Checks should be sent to normal receiving sites or 
to Central Receiving Service, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, Ky. 
40202-1396. 

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